Report Roundup

Mental-Health Checkups Suggested for Teenagers

School-based health centers should offer voluntary mental-health
screenings to all teenagers, and parents should work with schools to
ensure that their children have at least one mental-health checkup
before graduating from high school, a report recommends.

More than 800,000 teenagers suffer from depression each year, and
more than 500,000 make a suicide attempt that requires medical
attention, according to the report, which was commissioned by Columbia
University's Carmel Hill Center for the Early Diagnosis and Treatment
of Mental Illness. It also says suicide is the third-leading cause of
death among 15- to 19-year-olds.

"Catch Them Before They Fall: How to Implement Mental Health
Screenings for Youth" is online at www.teenscreen.org.

—Kevin Bushweller

After-School Program

An after-school intervention program for high school students deemed
at risk academically helped improve graduation and
college-matriculation rates, but did little to raise achievement-test
scores or reduce risky behaviors such as illegal drug use, according to
a recent study.

The study, conducted by Mathematica Policy Research Inc., examined
the Quantum Opportunity Program, which was established by the U.S.
Department of Labor and the Ford Foundation. The program aims to help
students with poor grades who are entering high schools that have high
dropout rates. Between 1995 and 2001, it served 580 students at seven
sites across the country.

—Kevin Bushweller

Junk Food and Soda

Companies that sell junk food and soda continue to advertise and
market products to schools despite the rise in childhood obesity and
other youth health problems related to poor diets, a university report
says.

Issued by the commercialism-in-education unit at Arizona State
University's Education Policy Studies Laboratory, the 39-page study
concludes that increased pressure to improve students' academic
performance prompts schools to accept money from corporations that sell
candy and soft drinks to help pay for needed after-school and other
academic programs. The report notes, for example, that many schools
have increased the number of vending machines they have in their
buildings, despite studies linking junk food with children's excessive
weight.

Vending Machines

More than two-thirds of teenagers polled in a recent survey said
they have bought junk food or soda from vending machines in their
schools.

The Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing Survey, conducted throughout August
and released last week, surveyed 517 students ages 13 to 17. It also
found that about one of every five students orders meals from fast-food
restaurants several times a week.

Online access to the survey results requires a subscription to the
Gallup Poll Tuesday Briefing, a special service of the Washington-based
Gallup Organization.

—Kevin Bushweller

Youths' Ethics

Roughly a third of the teenagers responding to a national survey
said they would act unethically to get ahead or to make money if there
was no chance of getting caught. But more than half the youths said
they believed that people who are ethical are more successful in
business.

The survey—commissioned by the Colorado Springs, Colo.-based
Junior Achievement and conducted by the Rochester, N.Y.-based Harris
Interactive polling firm—surveyed 624 young people ages 13 to
18.

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